** 16-Feb-2021 World View: Delusional politicians
DaKardii wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:21 pm
> Here's a very interesting quotation I found in Zbigniew
> Brzezinski's 1997 book
The Grand Chessboard. .....
> In those three sentences, Brzezinski (1) strongly implies that
> American imperialism is necessary; (2) calls American allies
> "vassals" and "tributaries;" and (3) calls American geopolitical
> rivals in Eurasia "barbarians."
> I have zero doubt that many people in our foreign policy
> establishment have these same beliefs, which are easily just as
> delusional as the pipe dreams of the CCP.
Brzezinski is talking from the point of view of America as World's
Policeman, following World War II. It's questionable how delusional
this is, since it can be reasonably argued that this role has been
mostly successful for the last 70 years.
By the way, Brzezinski's book is available as a free pdf from:
https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- ... rd.doc.pdf
But I have mixed emotions about saying that it's NOT delusional, since
I find that pretty much everything that every politician says is
delusional. Being delusional is almost the definition of a
politician.
What distinguishes the American system of democracy, and other
democracies as well, from the Chinese Communist dictatorship is that
in a democracy, stupid delusional policies can be stopped by other
politicians (possibly with different delusions). I always point to
Mao's Great Leap Forward, which I've characterized as the stupidest
and most disastrous policy of any country in the history of the world.
Mao even shut down the country's Statistical Bureau when it began
reporting results that he policy was failing, with the result that
tens of millions of innocent Chinese died. That kind of thing could
not happen in a democracy where there are countervailing political
forces that prevent really stupid policies. So that's the difference
between American democracy and the Chinese Communists: In China,
there's nothing to stop the stupid, delusional, destructive policies
of the leader, while in a democracy there is.
However, under the Democrats, the country is moving in the direction
of a Stalinist dictatorship, where big tech, the media and the
government are colluding to prevent anyone from speaking out against
the disastrous policies of the Biden administration. I don't know how
far this will go, but for the time being it's the darkest time in
America in my memory.
So OK, Brzezinski's statement is completely delusional, but so what?
If Brzezinski were a Chinese Communist dictator, we'd have plenty to
worry about. But he's just another delusional politician in
Washington DC, which has thousands of delusional politicians, and
their delusions eventually cancel each other out. Ain't democracy
wonderful?
DaKardii wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 6:46 pm
> The background shouldn't be the same color as the star in the
> flag. That gives the illusion that the star was cut out and the
> red part of the flag was just put over the background to make up
> for it.
Is that really so bad? I did that with the Chinese flag on the back
cover of the China book, and I thought that few people would even know
what was going on, and for the rest it would be interesting. But
assuming you're right, since I can't change the color of the flag,
then what should the color of the cover be?
